I\u2019ll preface this post with a request for your indulgence, as well as your thoughts, prayers or whatever your means of spiritual support may be.<\/p>\n
I think I mentioned that on January 10th<\/sup> my Mom entered into a Hospice program.\u00a0 This was during her second hospitalization in less than a month for heart failure.<\/p>\n While most certainly this was not an easy decision, I have no qualms that it was the right decision.<\/p>\n She had actually asked that we talk with her internist PCP concerning Hospice ~ 18 months ago \u2013 so she realized even back then that her time on this earth was coming to a close.<\/p>\n Her PCP wisely told her back then that he could not sign the Certificate because she did not meet the necessary criteria to be admitted to a Hospice program.\u00a0 Of course, I was much relived.\u00a0 She took it with her usual equanimity.\u00a0 (She\u2019s always been solid as a rock \u2013 me \u2026 not so much.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m blessed that SHE<\/em> has been the one who has said \u201cIt\u2019s time for me to move to Assisted Living\u201d \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s time that I start using the wheelchair for long the long distance to the dining room rather than my walker\u201d \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s time to revisit that talk with my PCP again about Hospice Care\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n When someone who is first diagnosed with congestive heart failure at 101 y\/o, the writing on the wall is pretty clear.<\/p>\n So with her second admission in less than a month in January, we again re-visited the subject with both her cardiologist and internist.\u00a0 This time there was no hesitation that this was the right (and inevitable) decision.<\/p>\n But, sadly, it doesn\u2019t make it any easier.<\/p>\n I fully admit that I\u2019m the one having a much more difficult time with her \u201cFinal Journey\u201d<\/em> than she is. \u00a0(And\u00a0 I am grateful she’s doing much better!).\u00a0 Maybe most people will be fortunate enough to recognize that their time here is coming to an end.\u00a0 I certainly hope I do.<\/p>\n The real difficulty for me is the fact that she lives 400 miles away \u2026 AND my cat.<\/p>\n I know I have shared with you that my shelter cat is NOT a friendly critter.\u00a0 And because of that, the staff at Mom\u2019s Assisted Living is not fond of him \u2026 AT ALL!<\/em><\/p>\n (I will note that while Nike and I have been up visiting, there have been at least three different Hospice nurses, the Hospice Chaplain, the Hospice Social Worker and Mom’s Pastor who’ve come to visit.\u00a0 Each one has spent over 30 minutes with Mom, me and the cat – and not one of them has ever had a problem with Nike.)<\/em><\/p>\n But as I\u2019ve tried to explain to them (especially as a Pediatrician), it\u2019s like having a child with disabilities or other medical issues \u2013 you don\u2019t just get rid of them & ask for exchange.\u00a0 You play the cards you\u2019re dealt.<\/p>\n But Mom likes the cat and asks that I bring him along.\u00a0 That\u2019s a request I simply cannot refuse.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s made trips up to Mom\u2019s very stressful in and of itself.\u00a0 That\u2019s now compounded by Mom being in Hospice.\u00a0 Hopefully the facility and I have worked out a program that will prevent any further problems involving the cat \u2013 both on Nike\u2019s part AND<\/em> on the staff\u2019s part.\u00a0 (Won\u2019t go into the details, but some on the staff have treated the cat less than kindly.)<\/em><\/p>\n At any rate, I\u2019ll try, as best I can, to continue with the \u201cFriday Fun\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 But hope you will understand if I miss a few entries when I\u2019m just not feeling up to it \u2013 like today.<\/p>\n As most of you probably know from your own personal experiences, this is just not an easy time for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ll preface this post with a request for your indulgence, as well as your thoughts, prayers or whatever your means of spiritual support may be. I think I mentioned that on January 10th my Mom entered into a Hospice program.\u00a0 This was during her second hospitalization in less than a month for heart failure. While […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}